Tenth installment

After leaving Paula's I arrived back home to be told that we were to have visitors the next day, they were ex SAS who were working as arms dealers for an Arab prince and were coming to Osijek to sell weapons to the local command. That night we had a phone call from the girls saying that they were stranded in town as there was an air raid on and could someone go to pick them up, Ernie asked me to go and I said that I would. After getting dressed and prepared I decided to use the Golf as it was quick and big enough for the job, so I set off with the radio turned up high as it was always better not to hear the grenades. We had arranged to meet outside the Central Hotel, I arrived and parked next to a British Range Rover wondering whom it belonged to. The lights were out so I waited in the lobby as it was protected by sandbags and the grenades were falling all over the center, as I was waiting a man came up to me and was wearing night vision equipment and to my surprise he spoke to me in english asking were these air raids always as bad, I answered by saying that most of the time they were worse, he laughed and proceeded to tell me that he was in Osijek on business, while we were talking one of the men and his girlfriend came up to me and asked if I could give them a lift home as the trams had stopped running, I told him that I had to go straight back to the school with the girls and as I spoke the girls came running in, the man I had been talking to offered to give them a lift home while I drove the girls back to base so we said goodbye and I left with the girls. When we arrived back I told Ernie that I had met an english business man who had been driving a range rover and that I thought he was one of the visitors we were expecting, Ernie didn't seem at all interested in what I was saying so I left the room and went to bed but not before I had read my article once again before I gave it to Paula, I wanted to make sure that I thought it was good enough for the paper.

The next morning two of the men arrived back explaining that they couldn't get back because of the air raid I accepted that as I was in Osijek the night before but Ernie didn't accept it so he gave them three days on guard duty for being late, I thought that it was a bit harsh but I said nothing as I wanted to borrow the car and after asking, Ernie said that it would be alright as long as I had the car back by lunchtime, I picked up Paula and we went straight to Bizovac. As we were driving to the hotel I kept thinking why had Ernie handed out such a harsh punishment. To me it seemed to be a special alliance forming between at least five of the men which I can only describe as the beginnings of a team but Ernie didn't and was always accusing them of inciting trouble but I never saw it that way. All the men, both Croatians and foreigners did as they were told but they were constantly talked about by Ernie(especially when they weren't around and therefore couldn't hear) as if one of them was out to get him but for what reason I didn't know. The Croatians were here because they lived here, the Australians because of their ancestry and all they wanted to do was the best for Croatia but why was Ernie here? When we arrived at the hotel the manager was waiting for us and explained what we would get for 2000HD a head, it included soup, main course, cake, wine and mineral water, it pretty reasonable so we booked it and said that we would pay for it on the night, shook hands and left, I had to take Paula back to Osijek before I could return to base. As I arrived I could see our driver was waiting to go for dinner for the men so I got out and he got in, I went to the office to see what was happening and found the same man that I had met the night before talking to Ernie, he introduced himself and I sat down to listen. From the way they were talking he was planning to use Ernie as a go between as he knew all the local commanders and could speak the language, I didn't think that Ernie was going to do this for nothing and there had to be something in it for him but what? When they had finished talking and had arranged the next meeting I walked the man to his car, he told me that he was driving the couple home the night before and the grenades were falling all around his car and he said that was the last time he would offer someone a lift home, I laughed as he was talking, an ex SAS soldier worrying about a few grenades when the people of Osijek had to live with it day in and day out, they had no choice. A burning question had just been answered by the visit of this man, I had been wondering for a long time as how there were always new weapons appearing in Osijek as there was a Un arms embargo on Croatia and BiH, now I knew, it was people like this man that were our only chance of getting on equal terms with the more powerful Serbians. All over the world these people are called various names like 'peddlers in death' but here in Croatia they were a present, if it had not been for these gun runners then the Serbians would have over run more than the one third of Croatia it already occupied and there would have been more injured and dead. Why didn't the rest of the world like these arms dealers were, why didn't they give us professional soldiers or at the very least military advisors who could have helped in the training of Croatias amateur army, I didn't know the answer, the only people that knew were those in power, the ones that played war games with little countries as Croatia as the prize, it was stupid and I wondered when it would change, if ever?